Works

When you had played with life a space
And made it drink and lust and sing,
You flung it back into God's face
And thought you did a noble thing.
"Lo, I have lived and loved," you said,...

("Canaris! nous t'avons oubli'.")

[VIII., October, 1832.]


O Canaris! O Canaris! the poet's song
Has blameful left untold thy deeds too long!
But when the tragic actor's part is done,...

From the Gentleman's London Magazine for January.

My lines to him you give; to speak your due,
'Tis what no man alive will say of you.
Your works are like old Jacob's speckled goats,...

Now is the rhymer's honest trade
A thing for scornful laughter made.

The merchant's sneer, the clerk's disdain,
These are the burden of our pain.

Because of you did this befall,...

Mordanto fills the trump of fame,
The Christian world his deeds proclaim,
And prints are crowded with his name.

In journeys he outrides the post,
Sits up till midnight with his host,...

One thing we praise you for that is past praise -
The dauntless eyes that faced the rain and night,
The hand that never wearied in the fight,
Till, through the dark's despair, the dawn's delays,...

Christina, maiden of heroic mien!
Star of the North! of northern stars the queen!
Behold, what wrinkles I have earn'd, and how
The iron cask still chafes my vet'ran brow,...

Thine eyes shall see the light of distant skies:
Yet, COLE! thy heart shall bear to Europe's strand
A living image of thy native land,
Such as on thine own glorious canvas lies;...

This wearisome and this distressing sleep
That we call life, O how dost thou support,
My Pepoli? With what hopes feedest thou
Thy heart? Say in what thoughts, and in what deeds,...

(In imitation of A. Lindsay Gordon.)


Well, Douglas, I'm sorry you've got to be homing,
Though I grant it's unwise to continue your roaming,
But the evening's to spare ere you drop me astern,...

Forgive the muse who, in unhallow'd strains,
The saint one moment from his God detains;
For sure whate'er you do, where'er you are,
'Tis all but one good work, one constant prayer....

To me, like hauntings of a vagrant breath
From some far forest which I once have known,
The perfume of this flower of verse is blown.
Tho' seemingly soul-blossoms faint to death,...

Do you remember one immortal
Lost moment out of time and space,
What time we thought, who passed the portal
Of that divine disastrous place
Where Life was slain and Truth was slandered...

La nuova alta belt'.


That new transcendent fair who seems to be
Peerless in heaven as in this world of woe,
(The common folk, too blind her worth to know...

I.

You're welcome to despots, Dumourier;
You're welcome to despots, Dumourier;
How does Dampiere do?
Aye, and Bournonville, too?
Why did they not come along with you, Dumourier?

II....

Danvers, 1866

Bankrupt! our pockets inside out!
Empty of words to speak his praises!
Worcester and Webster up the spout!
Dead broke of laudatory phrases!
Yet why with flowery speeches tease,...

I' ho gi' fatto un gozzo.


I've grown a goitre by dwelling in this den--
As cats from stagnant streams in Lombardy,
Or in what other land they hap to be--...

My halting Muse, that dragg'st by choice along
Thy slow, slow step, in melancholy song!
And lik'st that pace expressive of thy cares
Not less than Diopeia's[2] sprightlier airs...

My halting Muse, that dragg'st by choice along
Thy slow, slow step, in melancholy song!
And lik'st that pace expressive of thy cares
Not less than Diopeia's sprightlier airs...

Rapine has yet took nought from me;
But if it please my God I be
Brought at the last to th' utmost bit,
God make me thankful still for it.
I have been grateful for my store:...